UKH

My son, aged 14, is planning ahead to going to uni and wants to start building his own rack.

We are planning to get him a couple for his birthday. I know its very generic, but what would be the most versatile cams to get, to start him off. He has a set of smaller nuts and offsets already, but desperately wants some cams.

Thanks

Where is he going to uni? Different unis have different rocks and different rocks need different cams! What's the budget? 

I must have been doing something wrong for the last 25 years if that's the case.

Personally I'd recommend DMM Dragon Cams. Made in the UK, reslingable so will last longer and work well.

Since university is four years away, where does he lead climbs at the moment?  What you want for Curbar isn't necessarily what you'd want for, say, Anglezarke.

T.

DMM Dragon, Wild Country Friend, Black Diamond Camalot are much of a muchness really, all really good cams, can't go wrong adding a red+green+yellow set of any of them.

Personal preference really, it's nice to buy local (DMM) but I like the thumb loop on the camalots. 

Not sure as it's a bit off yet, but Lancaster, Leeds and Sheffield seem to be the main choices at the moment. With Lancaster looking like the top choice at the moment based on course and proximity to rock and home

Totem cams, more versatile than other cams

Dragons: good all-rounders

A pretty good full rack of cams would be black, blue, yellow and purple totem cam and then green, red, gold and big blue cams of black diamond camalot/dmm dragon/wild country friend. 

If you like thumb loops and extending slings - wild country.

If you like thumb loops and don't like extending slings - black diamond.

If you dont like thumb loops and do like extending slings - dmm. 

Lancaster is close to a lot of quarried grit and the lakes, so a good all-round set would be best. Don't know why people disagreed that different cams excel on different rock? If I was going to Bristol I'd want a full rack of totems and some micro cams. If I was going to Sheffield then I could get by with a rack of standard double-axle cams. If I was going to Bournemouth then the best set of cams would be a set of hexes.

Hutton roof, Blackstone edge and tremadog  are his main areas to lead at the moment. He isn't keen on lancs quarries to lead, apart from Cheesdem lumb

Given that smaller sizes of cam overlap with cracks that may be protectable with wires, I’d buy a red size 1 and gold size 2 DMM Dragon or Wild Country Friend. Both makes are relatively affordable and have extendable slings, unlike Black Diamond Camalots and Totem cams.
 

I’ve used and own all those makes. I’d probably lean toward DMM on the grounds of cost and ease of reslinging. They’re great cams.

Any of the ones mentioned above will suffice. At 14 your son is unlikely to have developed a preference so go for the cheapest deal you can find.

Personal thoughts, BD seems the most robust of the lot. Totem, whilst brilliant and a step above the others don't feel as long lasting. Others will vary.

Totems are ace, but wouldn't be recommending them as first cams for a 14 year old. Expensive way to learn about over-camming apart from anything else.

Red/Green/Yellow in Dragon/Camalot to start with

Then look at adding purple/yellow/blue Totem at the smaller end would be a good way to build a rack imo.

Apologies, those sizes are the WC Friends

The DMM red and gold are numbered 3 and 4 respectively. The colours correspond across the manufacturers.

Totems are very forgiving

they go in places other cams won't

they stay put when you fall on them in rubbish placements (experiment with 2 data points and no controls)

Perfect for inexperienced leaders

BD for big yellow upwards and doubles but sure other double axle cams would be just as good 

If you look online there are various bargains on a 2, 3 and 4 Dragon Cam set at around £160.

I think Totems are great (I have a full set of Totems and full set of BD ultralights).....but first cams for a 14 year old? They're pretty much double the price of Dragons/Camalots and neither of them are going to let down a new leader, plus they'll be getting familiar with the gear they'll most likely be using when combining gear with other uni MC climbers.

I mean, if you're made of money and just want to buy him a full set of Totems, then lucky lad, enjoy

Cheap ones.

https://www.sgurr.shop/collections/cams

Because they will get stuck!

Big fan of the Abalaks, anyone starting a rack on a budget should look at em. Five bits of pro that'll protect you anywhere a cam will, and more, for the price of a single cam.

Even though I'm somewhat older than your son, when building my own starter rack recently, my wife bought me the DMM 2-4 Dragon cam set. I'm hardly an expert but I love them. Made locally etc is a big thing for me, I do confess though that I really like the thumb loop on WC cams!

My climbing partner was at Lancaster Uni (a while back now like) and the mountaineering society sounds great

Red and gold Wild Country Friends. Make sure to get the latest version: thumb loop makes placements easy while the extendable sling means you can take fewer quickdraws. 

DMM dragon cams

+extendable sling; easy to get reslung in the UK (any cam will need re-slinging after max 10 years)

-no thumb loop (if you already climb using cams with one, you might miss it that feature, but for most people it's not a biggie)

Wild Country friends

+only cams with an extendable sling and a thumb loop

-hard to get reslung in the uk

Back Diamond camalots

+probably the most robust; has a thumb loop

-no extendable sling; hard to get reslung in the uk

Totem cams

+fits in more places, harder to get stuck, hold better in less than ideal placements, will make all his friends jealous

-expensive; perhaps not as robust; really come in to their own in the smaller sizes, while for your first cams you'd probably want medium sizes

Older cams or cheaper brands

+can get more cams for the money

-more research to find what's good or not, if he gets really into trad climbing he will want to replace them in a couple of years

I'd be delighted to get any kind of cam for my birthday, personally I would recommend red (size 3) and gold (4) DMM dragons, and a green (2) dragon if you were getting a third. The colours for sizes are consistent across DMM, WC and BD, but the numbers are not.

All modern cams are pretty good and there really isn't a lot of difference in use. Personally I'd go for DMM just because they can easily be rewired and re-slung in the UK. Unfortunately all the others have to be sent away for this to happen. 

Go to a shop that sells a variety and fondle them, the ones that give the best fondling experience win. Ideally climb with a variety of them and go with the ones you like.

Seriously - they all pretty much stick and go in the same so choose the ones that handle the best and that is down to what the owner likes. Some love thumb loops, others don't, some love extendable slings, others hate the added faff.

There is also a lot to be said for a sensible reslinging option so much so that we should boycott manufacturers that don't offer one.

If he is badly behaved you could buy him some hexes instead.

Surely a full set of nuts for £75

https://www.sgurr.shop/products/kouba-alu-nut-set-set-of-9-anodised-aluminu...

And some quick draws for £82

https://www.sgurr.shop/products/climbing-technology-basic-quickdraw-set

And let him decide on cams when he climbs more and has formed his own opinions. There's a lot of types and no right answer there (actually there is and it's DMM 😂)

Question - not just to you - is there any technical reason that DMM couldn't offer a reslinging service for other makes of cam?

Obviously there may be marketing and economic reasons, but surely a sling through one hole is pretty much the same as a sling through another hole. And although they would only have the precise technical specification of their own cams, inspecting a cam for damage that would require their retirement (or repair) is surely not particularly make dependent.

Read the post, he’s got nuts 

Well...

Surprisingly enough the different makes of cams require different sorts of slings and sometimes different patterns of slings (so the DMM extendable sling is a thin sling double looped through the large radius holes in the thumb trigger which is fairly simple but the BD ones around the thumb loop has a double layer of sling around the wire (presumably to help stop the sling cutting the loop - normal mode of failure).

However, the more likely practical problem is the whole assembly needs to be safety checked and certified before returning and, for instance,  I can't see DMM being willing (or perhaps technically capable) to certify some other brand's hardware as safe and take on the liability.

I assume its to do with one or both of:

1. Liability. Re-slinging a subtly damaged third-party cam and returning it to it's owner may create a risk that dmm's public liability insurers refuse to cover. And/or the cost of covering it may make the service uneconomical.

2. DMM may very well be providing a re-slinging service as a more or less cost neutral incentive for people to buy their cams. Dealing with other manufacturer's cams gains them nothing except lost sales.

This is quite interesting as BD will re-sling any black diamond cam for free and any other cam for a fee. This really is an amazing service. I had 10 cams re-slung recently, including some that were 20 years old, that I only occasionally use. I had to send them all to USA, but BD paid the postage back and sorted out all of the paperwork. Apart from the original cost to send them to Utah, I didn't pay a cent. They also replaced the wires on a couple of them without me asking them to. I realise that it's a bit cheaper to send stuff to Wales, but the customer service from Black Diamond is unbeatable. 

This would require them to apply their own CE mark to the whole cam which gives them legal responsibilities over the safety of the equipment to be used, however they don't have access to the design information for the cam.

Most companies would run away at the idea of taking liability for another company's work and unknown period through its design life without having design data, I suspect most engineers would not feel they could confidently stand in front of a Judge and say they had complete confidence in the safety of a product on the basis of so little information.

This has nothing to do with technically possible. It has to do with the simple fact that any unit which is returned for repair must comply with CE/UKAS standards when it leaves the factory. DMM cannot recertify a Totem/WC/BD unit and nor would they want to. 

Not anymore it seems. Few people have said they have halted this service for the foreseeable.

It's now a paid for service. $10 per re-sling, $15 per trigger wire. Interesting to note the disclaimer and information about them not testing or certifying as safe. 

https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/content/cam-repair/